Dragon Age: Origins (PS3) Review
Brutal Gamer heads to Ferelden to slay some evil breasts beasts.
As you’re probably aware, BioWare is known for being something of an RPG specialist, with fantastic games like Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic (Which I picked up recently) and, more recently, Mass Effect. Now they return to the fantasy style once more with Dragon Age: Origins, a game which I admit I didn’t know much of until this year’s Eurogamer Expo. Let’s go on a journey, shall we?
Dragon Age: Origins is a dark fantasy style RPG set in the land of Ferelden. The land is again threatened by the presence of the demonic Darkspawn and you, as the newest addition to the legendary Grey Wardens who are tasked with defeating the Darkspawn once again. Your classic good vs. evil story, essentially. There are three races you can choose to play as, with two types of each race. These are Human Noble, Human/Elf Mage, Dwarf Noble, Dwarf Commoner, Dalish Elf and City Elf. These races are further split by three classes, Warrior, Mage and Rogue. Different characters will react to you in different ways throughout the game depending on which combinations you choose to play as. Each of the six starting character types have their own origin story which lasts a couple of hours before all of the converge into the same main storyline of the game.
The first thing that hits you is the sheer amount of talking and story that has been put into this game, which really fleshes the world of Ferelden out and gives you a history of what has happened. The suitably epic soundtrack of the game is complimented by some of the most excellent voice acting in a video game. All the characters have unique qualities and personality, and they even talk with each other as you explore, with the barbed exchanges between Morrigan and Alistair being a particular highlight. As with other BioWare developed RPGs, you can talk to people in different ways which will have different outcomes for you. For example, if you encounter a band of unscrupulous merchants, you can try and talk them into leaving town, or you can try and intimidate them, which could result in you taking them down in battle. Each of your party members has an ‘approval rating’ with you, which can be affected by the way you talk to them and the actions you perform. However, the morality of games such as Mass Effect are not in this game, as it ends with you winning the day regardless of what path you choose to get there.
Ferelden is a huge land with lots of different and varied locations to visit, and plenty of quests to partake in, and lots of side quests that branch off in different directions. However, you will still be reminded of the fact that there are bigger fish to fry, so you never lose sight of your overall goal. Overall, there are many, many hours of game to be had, which can even add up to 100+ hours if you’re the sort of person who likes to explore every nook and cranny of the game, as you can play the game through once and not even scratch the surface of what this game has to offer.
The game in itself is very micro management orientated, and you will find yourself spending a lot of time in menus changing things around to suit your current situaution. In battle, for example, you hit the cross button to start attacking in the first instance, and then you can use the other face buttons to use special abilities which you can map and personalise as you see fit. You can access a second layer of abilities by holding the R2 button to bring them up and hitting the relevant face button. Holding L2 brings up a radial menu from which you can select special skills and potions. Potions can also be mapped to the face button controls as well to make things easier, if you wish. You can also change which party member you are directly controlling on the fly with the use of the L1 and R1 buttons, queueing up attacks and item usage.
This micro management continues in the stats screen. When you level up, you choose which stats you want to improve and what new skills you want to employ. As with previous BioWare games, you can elect to Auto Level your party members, so the game automatically selects new abilities and stats when they level. You will also find plenty of loot as you make your way through the world, be it through slaying monsters or by opening the various crates, boxes and cabinets that you find on your travels. You’ll be spending time making sure your gear is just right to enable your team to take out the enemy. Also, if things get too tough or too easy for you, you can switch your difficulty level on the fly from the four available levels.
There is one problem with Dragon Age, though, and that’s the graphics department. While the rest of the game is excellently crafted, the game doesn’t look great as current generation games go. A lot of the textures are somewhat low on detail, and just generally bland. There are some weird animations as well, particularly in the facial expressions. Very odd when you consider how good Mass Effect’s graphics were. In addition to this, there are quite a few graphical glitches and a lot of pop-up. And if things on screen get a little bit busy, the frame rate tends to take a bit of a nose dive. The whole thing looks decent enough, but it’s nothing to write home about.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This is a quality RPG and this is more evidence of BioWare doing what they do best, crafting a fine story and great characters with some amazing voice work and fantastically well thought out controls and gameplay. The graphics leave a bit to be desired, but if you can get past that, you will be treated to a fantastic game that will suck up weeks, maybe even months, of your life. And you’ll love every minute of it.
User Score:
1 vote
1 vote
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01 Dec 2009, 5:14 pm
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[...] Sunday (Valentines day) on the EA Store, you’ll be able to pick up; Dragon Age: Origins, Dead Space and The Saboteur all on PC for the very reasonable price of $99. Dragon Age: Origins [...]